


Prickly Bastards

by onaswiftlytiltingplanet



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Pet Store, M/M, Pet Store
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-24 05:03:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2569154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onaswiftlytiltingplanet/pseuds/onaswiftlytiltingplanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A PetStore!AU:</p><p>Combeferre, Courfeyrac, and Jehan think Enjolras is too focused on work, so they decide to get him a pet. But they get him a temperamental hedgehog, and he has no idea what to do with it, so he asks Grantaire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prickly Bastards

**Author's Note:**

> So, I had a pretty positive response on my last (first) fic, which is ridiculously amazing, so I decided to just write out some more of the ideas I have in my head. I'd really love to get some feedback. Comments/kudos will always be appreciated, if you think they're deserved. None of these characters belong to me!
> 
> I don't know anything about pet store policies, so that is fictionalized.

“No, it’s this one. It has to be this one.”

“No, it looks too sleepy. We want something to entertain him and distract him, not just lay there like it’s dead.”

“You two do realize that it probably will be dead after a few days, right? Enjolras can’t remember to take care of himself. Do you really think he’ll remember to care for another living thing, without constantly being reminded?”

“That’s what he has us for, ‘Ferre! We’ll text him and call him throughout the day to make sure he doesn’t kill whatever we get him! And we’re over there almost every day, anyway. We can take care of it!”

Combeferre rolled his eyes at Courfeyrac and Jehan as they turned back to the glass cases, cooing at the little fluffy creatures, but he couldn’t help but be charmed by their antics, either.

As the three men move down the aisle, looking for a small companion for their friend, a young woman in a blue vest rushed by them, cradling a small, beat up box against her chest.

“’Taire, I need to get back to the registers, but he was returned again, can you take him?”

A curly-headed man, also in a blue vest, came out to meet her with an irritated look on his face.

“Again? This is the third time. The stress of it is going to kill the poor bastard,” he said, taking the box away from his co-worker, opening the top and looking inside.

“I know, but I really need to get back up to the front, can you get him back into a display?” the woman said.

The man nodded, lips pursed together, and the girl swept past Combeferre and his friends again, and the man walked over behind a counter, box in hand. Jehan and Courfeyrac hadn’t been paying any attention to the ordeal, too enamored by a gerbil running on his wheel.

Combeferre walked over to the employee with the box. His nametag just said the letter “R”. Combeferre said, “Excuse me. I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation. I was wondering, what kind of animal is in there?”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it," the employee said as he opened the box and picked up what appeared to be a shaking ball of needles, with his bare hands. “He’s a hedgehog.”

Combeferre raised his eyebrows. “Why has he been returned so many times?”

R huffed out a quick breath and said, “Well, he’s prickly, and I mean that in every sense of the word. I think people just see the cute face—when he decides to show it—and don’t realize that they’re not the friendliest creatures, at first.”

“At first?” Combeferre said. “Do they get friendlier?”

“Well yeah. It’s like with most domestic animals. Give them a good home, and establish a trusting, loving relationship, and you can make any critter fall in love with you.”

During their exchange, the breathing pincushion unfurled itself, sniffed R’s hand, and tried to crawl up his arm. The man noticed the animal’s struggle and put him on the counter to walk around comfortably.

Combeferre smiled at the little creature and called Jehan and Courf over to the counter. Both of their eyes immediately went wide at the hedgehog.

‘Ferre said, “Prickly, curious, and undeniably adorable. They’ll make quite a pair, don’t you think?”

The other two men were beside themselves, and Jehan said to the man behind the counter, “Can I hold him?”

R said, “Right now his quills are down, so it should be fine, but he’s skittish. If you startle him, it’ll almost definitely hurt, unless you’re used to it. He also might bite you.”

Jehan wasn’t concerned about the pain, but he didn’t want to risk frightening the animal, so he just laid his hand down in front of it, to let it sniff him. It did and almost immediately bit his fingertips. R picked the creature up, and apologized to Jehan and then said, “I did, warn you though.”

“No, I know! It’s fine, it really didn’t hurt.” Jehan turned to his friends and said, “But I do think he’s perfect. Enj needs a project outside of work. This could be good for him!”

Both of the other men are in agreement, but R interrupts them and says, “I’m really sorry, but this hedgie’s been returned three times already. Even if you’re confident that this friend of your’s can take care of him, I don’t feel comfortable selling him to you, when this guy doesn’t know about it, and when they haven’t interacted at all.” He gives the three men an apologetic look and says, “I’m sure you all mean well, but if he gets returned again for bad behavior, we’d have no choice but to put him down. There’s no way we could sell him again. Company policy and all that.” He looked extremely bitter when he said that last bit.

Courfeyrac stepped up and said, “I completely understand, but I am in love with that little baby already. If our friend doesn’t want him—or hell, even if he does—I’ll take care of him. He’ll have a good home, no matter what.”

R really didn’t know what it was, but there was something trustworthy about the man who’d just spoken, so he agreed, asking if they have any of the required supplies.

Considering they didn’t even know what animal they were going to get when they came to the shop, they didn’t have anything for it yet. R showed them all of the things they would need, walking them up to the registers, with the hedgehog in a new box.

“Hey, Éponine, you good to check these three out?”

The woman from before nodded, without looking away from the customer she was currently taking care of. While she finished up, R said to the three men, “If you need any help with him, just come in or call and ask for “Grantaire”. I should be able to help you out with almost anything.” And with that he walked away, back to the counter where he’d been, before.

The men moved up in line, and as Éponine checked them out, she raised her eyebrows when she realized what animal they were buying, but she didn’t say a word. She just bagged up all their supplies and told them to have a nice day.

* * *

 

Two days later, Grantaire looked up from where he was feeding the fish, at the sound of his name. He saw a blond man, holding a box in his hands, looking incredibly disheveled, with dark circles under his eyes, and yet he still looked insanely attractive.

 _How is that fair?_  Grantaire thought.

Éponine directed Sexy, Blond Guy over to Grantaire, and as he walked over, he opened the box and heard a little hissing sound.

_You have got to be kidding me._

Any positive thought he had about that guy flew out the window when he realized what he had in the box.

He stormed over to Sexy, Blond Guy and said, “Did your friends not tell you that he would be put down if that hedgehog was returned again?”

“No, I—“

“Do you even care, what the hell is wrong with you?”

“I really—“

“I normally don’t talk to customers like this, but your friends promised me that this little guy would be in a good place, and to be frank, I’m really fucking pissed about this. “

“Grantaire! They told me. I know what would happen if he was returned. But they also told me your name, and where they got him, for if I ever needed help. And I really, really do. Need help, that is. I’m Enjolras.”

Grantaire snapped his mouth shut, realizing he had just made a complete twat of himself.

“Oh…I—uh—right. What can I help you with?”

The blond furrowed his brow at Grantaire, not even bothering to be upset by the man’s comments, too focused on the shaking ball of quills in the box.

“It keeps me up all night. It never stops on the wheel, and I can’t sleep at all. And then I try to pick it up during the day and it just hisses and bites me, and then curls up into an angry, spikey ball.”

“Do you have his cage in your room?”

“Yes.”

“Well…he’s nocturnal, so that’s why he’s keeping you up at night.”

Enjolras looked at Grantaire, unimpressed. “Yes, I know what it means to be nocturnal. I thought you were supposed to be helpful.”

Grantaire rolled his eyes. “Well, if you don’t want him to keep you up, move the cage out of your room. It’s in his nature to be awake all night.”

Enjolras looked like he wanted to say something else, but before he could, Grantaire reached into the box and scooped out the quivering creature, who almost immediately lifted its head and walked around his palm.

Enjolras looked on, and realized his mouth was gaping open. Snapping it shut, he said, “Why does he like you?” He then realized he sounded like a petulant child.

Grantaire didn’t notice. He was too busy smiling down at the little hedgie.

“What did you name him?” he said.

“Uh… Marat…” And he actually managed to look a little sheepish at the look Grantaire gave him.

“You named your hedgehog after a French revolutionary, who was murdered in his bathtub?”

Enjolras was actually a bit surprised the man knew who the name referred to, but before he could say so, Grantaire continued.

He said, “No wonder he hates you,” and he chuckled at the offended look on the blond’s face. “I mean, you could have at least given him an honorable, if not very original hedgehog name. “Sonic” would have done just fine.”

Enjolras shot him a withering look and said, “Please, give me some credit. I’m a bit more creative than that.”

Grantaire huffed, muttering “Yeah, sure you are,” and went back to playing with the little animal.

Enjolras hated to admit it, but he really did find Marat to be precious, and really wanted him to like him, so he swallowed his pride and said, “Look, I really don’t know what I’m doing here, and you clearly do. Can you please help me?”

Grantaire looked up and smiled, saying, “Yeah, sure. But it’s for him, not you.” He dropped the teasing tone when he said, “I’d like for him to be in a good home, so yeah, of course I’ll help you out.”

He went on to explain that what the animal needed was to just get used to Enjolras’ presence.

“You need to take him out and just hold him for at least half an hour a day. Stay as still and quiet as possible, so he’ll feel comfortable around you. Sometimes putting something that smells like you in his cage with him will help, too.”

Enjolras nodded and said he’d try and see what would work for them.

But Grantaire said, “I know that face, Blondie. You’re not just gonna go home, hold him, and everything will be alright. It’ll take a while. Seriously, a long while. At least for him to trust you completely”

“Well he really seems to trust you,” Enjolras said, a little put out. “And he can’t have been here for that long.”

Grantaire snorted and said, “Yeah, well I work here almost every day. Whenever I had a break, or any downtime, really, I took him out.”

“Do you do that with all the other animals?”

“No,” Grantaire said, rubbing the back of his neck, “I’m just a sucker for these prickly bastards.” He stroked Marat’s back, before putting him in Enjolras’ hands, continuing to pet him lightly. “Just hold him like I was.”

Enjolras looked down at his pet, and to his pleasure, he hadn’t immediately curled up and started huffing. Quite on the contrary, actually. His head was up, and sniffing Enjolras’ fingers. He wasn’t biting him or anything.

Enjolras glanced up and saw how close the employee had gotten to him, while petting the creature in his hands, and realized that was the only reason Marat was so relaxed. But it meant that he was relaxed and still taking in Enjolras’ scent, so he really had no complaints.

“You know…” Enjolras hesitated.

“Yes?” Grantaire lifted his head, meeting the blond man’s eyes, also realizing how close they were, with the hedgehog in between them.

“I can see how much you like him…and he obviously really likes you, too—so much so that he’s not cowering away from me—so if you ever wanted to—I don’t know, come over and play with him sometime, I’d be fine with that.”

Grantaire’s eyebrows went up as he took in the blond’s words. “You’re inviting me over to play with your pet hedgehog?”

“Well, I mean, only if you want to.”

“Yeah,” Grantaire smiled. “I’d love to see  _him_ , sometimes. Give me your phone. I’ll put my number in, then you can text me your’s.”

Enjolras held Marat to his chest while he fished his cell phone out of his back pocket, handing it to Grantaire.

He put his number in, under the name “R”.

After seeing this, Enjolras noticed that that was what Grantaire’s nametag said, as well.

“What does the “R” stand for?”

Grantaire smirked and said, “Really? You named your hedgehog “Marat”.” He laughed at Enjolras’ confused face, and walked away. “Figure out, Mister French Culture.”

Enjolras shook his head, with a bemused smile.

And no sooner than Grantaire had turned the corner, out of sight, the prickly bastard in Enjolras’ hands bit down, hard into his thumb.

**Author's Note:**

> Come on over to my tumblr!: onaswiftlytiltingplanet.tumblr.com
> 
> Also, please read my other fic, Light From the Balcony (http://archiveofourown.org/works/2562623), if you liked this. It'd mean a lot!


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